Meet the 70-Year-Old Japanese Women Who Freedive for Seafood

[Judi Lynn]

Meet the 70-Year-Old Japanese Women Who Freedive for Seafood






LANCE HENDERSTEIN
MAR 8 2017, 3:00PM

For over 2,000 years Ama have been freediving along the coast of Japan. Once renowned as powerful, half-naked women of the sea, time is catching up with them.

In a smoke-filled metal shack, three women cook freshly caught seafood on a simple metal screen over an open charcoal fire. The shells of awabi (abalone), Ise ebi (Japanese spiny lobster), sazae (turban shell), and uni (sea urchin) blacken and juices bubble from within. The purpose of the fire isn't only to cook the freshly caught seafood, but to warm the three women after they spent the morning in the sea catching today's meal. It's November and the water is frigid, and now that they're in their 60s and 70s, it takes more time for their aging bodies to recover.

They are part of a five-woman diving crew, and three of the 700 Ama divers remaining in the Toba and Shima area of Mie prefecture—three of only 2,000 remaining in all of Japan. There used to be thousands more.

More:
https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/meet-the-ama-women-of-japan-who-freedive-for-seafood-through-their-seventies

[PJMcK]

1. Fascinating article!

Thanks for posting the link, Judi Lynn.

The Ama divers have interested me ever since I read the Ian Fleming novel, "You Only Live Twice" in the early 1970's. In the story, James Bond goes undercover in a remote Japanese fishing village in order to capture or kill Earnst Stavro Blofeld, an evil mastermind who has threatened the world's governments with stolen nuclear weapons and killed Bond's wife. While on this island, he assumes the role of a local worker who rows his diver, Kissy Suzuki, out to sea each day in order to dive for oysters. While on the island, he learns about their lifestyle, history, culture and religion. Fleming's descriptions are engaging travelogues.

Fleming's Bond novels are quite different than the movies and the characters are quite a bit more interesting than the comic book ones in the films. The novels don't have the snarky double-entendres and Bond doesn't really have a lot of fancy gadgets. More importantly, Bond is not a superhero and he frequently screws up. At the end of "From Russia With Love," he almost dies and we don't learn he's survived until the beginning of the next novel.

However, the cultural details and descriptions and histories of various exotic locales and people make for wonderful reading. For example, in "Goldfinger," the infamous golf match between the antagonists takes a dozen or more pages and explains all of the strategies of the match. In "Thunderball," Bond's primary love interest, Domino, spends three or four pages telling a story about the artwork on a pack of cigarettes; it turns out that her story is factually true. Lastly, in "Diamonds Are Forever," Fleming describes the horse racing business in Saratoga and it's symbiotic relationship with that community. The mud and sulfur baths even play a role in the story!

Anyway, sorry for the digression! I enjoyed the "munchies" article.

[procon]

2. I can't even wrap my brain around these women doing such arduous work

at their age. They must be in excellent health (how I envy them!), and they are certainly courageous to continue laboring in such a dangerous job. This is a perfect story for International Women's Day, thanks for the interesting link!